cell phone advice

[mum5]

Hi there, we currently have a family plan w/ alarge company, the bill has gone up and up and up over the 5 years that we have had it. So now we have had enough of giving our hard earned money to the corporate guy.
We do however need some form of telephone to take with us in the car, for both dh and then myself also.
I have heard about a phone that you can buy for about $30.00 and then use the minutes as needed,recharging as you go kind of thing.
Does anyone have any experience/ advice w/ this kind of thing?

[JamieCatheryn]

It's called pre-paid, and if you don't use your phone much or are determined to not be in contract it's great, but if you do really use it you'll be paying too much for few minutes. Most of the carriers offer an option like that. Also, there's something coming out soon with T-mobile where you have a pre-paid monthly plan, no credit check or deposit, no contract if you buy the phone yourself from them, but it's a similar plan to the normal post-paid and a better deal. With a family plan with lots of lines you will probably find you're getting the best deal you can already with normal post-paid though.

[CarrieMF]

We have a pay-as-you-go phone through rogers. We paid about $40 for the phone 6 or 7 years ago. We buy more minutes when ours run out, usually once a month but we didn't buy any minutes from Sept-May because we didn't need the phone. the only people who have our cel phone number are dh, a friend of mine(who has never & most likely will never use it as she's moving away & we use the net to communicate), my parents who only use it if they're on their way here or we're on our way there & for some odd reason they need to contact us.

We buy minutes $10 at a time unless we know we'll be using it more, then we buy $20. Like I said they last us about a month.

when the kids get older & need their own we'll have to upgrade to something else.

[jennlyn]

I have a prepaid plan from All-tel. The phone was around 30.00 and it came with 30 minutes. I opted to purchase 100.00 worth of additional minutes that would not expire for a year. With many of the plans, you must buy additional minutes within a month or so or the minutes you have left will not roll over. We do not use our phone for chatting, it is solely for if I am out and someone needs me. The cost per minute is somewhere around .10 or .15. I am happy with it as it suits our needs.

[Red Sonja]

We have prepaid phones through Virgin Mobile. I don't use my cell phone that much and DH is gone for months at a time (Navy) so it just doesn't make sense for us to have a plan. With Virgin Mobile you spend $20 every 3 months (or $15 every 3 months if you have it set to "top up" automatically) and your minutes carry over and don't expire. It works great for us.

[mum5]

Thanks for the cell phone advice.
We do not use the phone for chatting either, that is why I am so amazed that our bill is so high, and apparently we are on the lowest family plan avaliable.
It just baffles me how and why people spend $$$ on bascially junk. The Virgin plan sounds good. I like the idea of roll over minutes too!

Thanks and keep the advice coming!

[Snowdrift]

I know this is quickly becomign unconventional and a lot of people are ot comfortable with it.

But...we are currently a cell-phone free family and we LOVE it. When we have trouble in the road we find someone who can help us. Usually they find us. (I drive a 13 yo Jeep with a broken gas gauge...it has happened). We communicate better. We plan ahead. And when Sh!t happens, instead of calling someone we figure it out. There are moments when it really, really sucks, but then we figure it out and feel good about either being self-reliant instead of calling or about treating the world as our community--meetng new people, being friendly, accepting offered and needed help. It's fine.

It may not always be possible for us. If I had a young child in day care I might not be comfortable being unreachable. If I needed a cell for work, obviously I'd have to get one.

but right now, we are cell-free and happy.

In the past we've had Virgin Mobile and it was good.

[jennlyn]

Tie-dyed, you made me laugh. I remember the days when no one had a cell phone and you took spare change with you when you went out and hoped if you broke down it wouldn't be on a dark lonely stretch of road, that no one weird would stop to help you and that there would be a payphone nearby. Now it's hard to even locate a payphone.

[straighthaircurly]

Originally Posted by Red Sonja

We have prepaid phones through Virgin Mobile. I don't use my cell phone that much and DH is gone for months at a time (Navy) so it just doesn't make sense for us to have a plan. With Virgin Mobile you spend $20 every 3 months (or $15 every 3 months if you have it set to "top up" automatically) and your minutes carry over and don't expire. It works great for us.

My dh and I switched to this over a year ago also and have been very happy. We were paying a ton of $$ with Verizon before and never came close to using our minutes. On average I only need to top up my Virgin phone every 2 months so that is only $10 a month. My dh uses his even less and usually tops up around the 3 month point. I don't have the "auto" top-up because I just hate when things are automatically paid for.

[reducereuserecycle]

i checked into this and found that Cingulair is pretty good w/ their Prepaid plans if u don't plan to use the phone much

[kalisis]

Just another thought - check around with people in your local area to see who has the best service. We had Cingular when we lived in MD/VA and it was great - we'd probably do their prepaid plan now b/c we loved them. But then, when we moved to NY, their service was really bad. There wasn't even any service at our house. So, we ended up going with Sprint and are satisfied with them. I think the last time I did research, Cingular had better plans, but wouldn't work for us b/c of the area thing. So, before you spend the money, make sure that you can actually use the darn thing if/when you want to, kwim?

[mommy68]

You can get a pre-paid phone almost anywhere nowadays. I bought one last year at Walmart as an extra phone. It can get expensive if you use it a lot but if you need it just for emergencies and occasional use then a pay-as-you-go plan would be perfect for you.

[lucyem]

I used to have a tracfone. It was great. Worked in places other phones did not. We live in the mountains so cell phone reception is tough. I only used it for emergencies. Their phones changed and their new cheaper phones do not work as great. I have little kids in school 40 minutes away and am not comfortable at all with not being reachable. I recently ended up getting a family plan with my husband. His is for work so he gets his moneys worth on a regular plan. I still only use mine for emergencies or to call him which is free. But check around. All the major companies have pay as you go programs or you can go for tracfone at target or wal mart.